READING FOR APRIL 21
Moroni 1-6
LAST CLASS OF THE YEAR WILL BE APRIL 28
BOOK OF ETHER
“First, unlike the other two Book of Mormon migratory peoples,
the Jaredites (as we call them) are not Jews under the Law of Moses. They’re not even Israelite (also a late term) or Canaanite,
but Mesopotamian. So they are operating under a different set of religious ideas, different language (Sumerian, Akkadian, something else? Hebrew isn’t an option), different cultural background than the rest of the Book of Mormon. And indeed, Ether has a different feel to it than the rest. It’s largely political history, stories of wars between scheming royal families, imprisonment, regicide, etc.”
“We need to take careful account of the text, and not go beyond it, leaping to conclusions. The first issue is that Ether is, I think, the most heavily edited and translated book we have. Records of some kind are kept by the Jaredites and centuries later, edited and compiled by Ether.These plates are then translated by Mosiah. 500 years later, they are re-edited by Moroni who makes expansive and editorializing commentary into the Book of Mormon, and then they are translated again by Joseph Smith. So although it appears we are reading an immediate first-hand eyewitness account of a tower and language change, in actuality that record passed through lots of minds and editing, who we know inserted their own comments to the record.”
Ben Spackman, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/benjaminthescribe/2016/11/bom-gospel-doctrine- lesson-45-46-ether/
BOOK OF ETHER
“When people think of the book of Ether in the Book of Mormon, they often remember scenes of deception, darkness, and bloodshed.This is not all that surprising, for indeed the book of Ether contains much of these kinds of things.The text speaks of a time of terrible wickedness when ‘all the people upon the face of the land were shedding blood, and there was none to restrain them.’ All the men kept their swords in their hands and no one would lend anything to another because no one was trustworthy in all the land. These unrestrained contentions led to so much bloodshed ‘that the whole face of the land was covered with the bodies of the dead.And so swift and speedy was the war that there was none left to bury the dead, . . . leaving the bodies of both men, women, and children strewed upon the face of the land, to become prey to the worms of the flesh.And the scent thereof went forth upon the face of the land.’ Because ‘the Spirit of the Lord had ceased striving with them, and Satan had full power over the hearts of the people; for they were given up unto the hardness of their hearts, and the blindness of their minds that they might be destroyed,’ all the Jaredites ‘were drunken with anger, even as a man who is drunken with wine.’ The final bloodbath culminated when Coriantumr decapitated Shiz, leaving only Coriantumr and Ether alive.
When we read the bloody conclusion of Ether, the following statement by the Lord to the brother of Jared at the commencement of the record seems strange:‘There [in the promised land] will I bless thee and thy seed, and raise up unto me . . . a seed, upon all the face of the earth.’ We wonder why Moroni included all that wickedness if the Jaredites were such a “great nation” and whether the record contained on the gold plates was, as Moroni said,‘of great worth.’”
Frank Judd, Jr. https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/jaredite-zion-societies-hope-better-world
JAREDITE RECORD AND MOSIAH
“The Jaredite record had come into the hands of Mosiah and had been translated by the power of God. He couldn’t ignore its messages and applications to his own situation.This stunning record, like a message from heaven, likely caused him to rethink his plans. Because the Jaredite legacy offered strong warnings against the abuses of kingship and power, Mosiah was influenced not to give the throne to someone other than his heir apparent. Knowing how the Jaredites had turned away from God as their heavenly king also influenced Mosiah to stress the accountability of all people to answer equally and individually to God for their sins (Mosiah 29:38).”
“Seeing the historical grounding of this cautionary counsel makes Mosiah’s warning all the more potent as a forewarning to readers in the latter days. This was no idle threat, nor was it merely hyperbole in a war of competing ideologies. It was based on the outcome of real historical events Mosiah had become familiar with while translating the Jaredite record. As such, it stands as a witness and warning to modern readers, underscoring the importance of collectively making righteous choices as a society.”
WEAKNESS
“We might define weakness as the limitation on our wisdom, power, and holiness that comes with being human.As mortals we are born helpless and dependent, with various physical flaws and predispositions.We are raised and surrounded by other weak mortals, and their teachings, examples, and treatment of us are faulty and sometimes damaging. In our weak, mortal state we suffer physical and emotional illness, hunger, and fatigue.We experience human emotions like anger, grief, and fear.We lack wisdom, skill, stamina, and strength.And we are subject to temptations of many kinds.”
“There is another, even more powerful way that God makes weak things strong unto us.The Lord says to Moroni in Ether 12:37,“Because thou hast seen thy weakness thou shalt be made strong, even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father.”
Here God is not offering to change Moroni’s weakness, but to change Moroni. By tackling the challenge of human weakness, Moroni—and we—can learn charity, compassion, meekness, patience, courage, long-suffering, wisdom, stamina, forgiveness, resilience, gratitude, creativity, and a host of other virtues that make us more like our Father in Heaven.These are the very qualities we came to earth to hone, the Christlike attributes that prepare us for the mansions above.
Nowhere is God’s love, wisdom, and redemptive power more evident than in His ability to turn our struggle with human weakness into the invaluable godly virtues and strengths that make us more like Him.”
Wendy Ulrich, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2015/04/it-isnt-a-sin-to-be-weak?lang=eng
A LATTER-DAY SAINT THEOLOGY OF SUFFERING
“We wanted life, however high the cost.We suffer because we were willing to pay the cost of being and of being here with others in their ignorance and inexperience as well as our own.We suffer because we are willing to pay the costs of living with laws of nature, which operate quite consistently whether or not we understand them or can manage them.We suffer because, like Christ in the desert, we apparently did not say we would come only if God would change all our stones to bread in time of hunger.We were willing to know hunger. Like Christ in the desert, we did not ask God to let us try falling or being bruised only on condition that he catch us before we touch ground and save us from real hurt. We were willing to know hurt. Like Christ, we did not agree to come only if God would make everyone bow to us and respect us, or admire us and understand us. Like Christ, we came to be ourselves, addressing and creating reality.We are finding out who we are and who we can become regardless of immediate environment or circumstances.
What is the point of that? What is the point of knowing reality and being ourselves, of suffering? Why did this matter so much?
One reason we were willing to pay the high costs of continuing to address reality and become ourselves is that God told us we can become more like himself.We can become more abundantly alive, with ultimate fulness of truth, joy, and love—fulness impossible for souls unable to take real part in creating it, souls ignorant of good or evil, pleasure or pain, souls afraid of the unknown.”
CHRIST AND THE WORK OF SUFFERING
“Christ worked mightily in the final hours of his life. He struggled quietly in the Garden of Gethsemane, heavy with the sicknesses of humankind, lonely and pressed down. He stood raw and wounded, enduring the banal cruelty of magistrate and mob. He bore his burden through Jerusalem’s crowded streets. Exposed, he called for water, but tasted vinegar.The weight of his body dragged on his nail-pierced hands and on his lungs, arresting his breath. He witnessed his mother’s torment and could do nothing for her. Alone, he cried out into the darkness, unable to hear God’s voice.Then finally his task was finished. Having experienced suffering, one develops power over it — not the power to stop it, or take it away from someone you love, but to know its sorrows fade. Having experienced suffering, one receives power from it — the power to share others’ burdens and be humble, to see one’s own burdens and be kind. On the other side of suffering is strength. It is a peculiar sort of confidence that derives from having had no confidence at all.Things that once seemed difficult are now no trouble, and things that seemed like trouble now reveal themselves as gifts. People who once seemed vexing, inexplicable, or foreign now strike me as familiar because they have known pain. People who once seemed broken and tainted with ruin while I imagined myself to be whole are now my sisters and brothers.Truly, now I know that I am nothing, which thing I never had supposed.”
Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye, https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/christ-and-the-work-of-suffering/
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